Opinions on "FYSETC" ... politely, please.
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So... I'm in Canada. A couple of the wholesalers that sell your boards are not stocking things as well. I have a duet2wifi --- and I'm pleased as punch with it... But I'm building a new printer.
As inspiration, I'm taking the tool changer from e3d, but I build my own things --- and this is no exception. It will be different in enough ways that it's a custom job.
Anyways. FYSETC. In looking for a new display (for some reason, touch is not working on my display now) I found a new distributor. I figured that I'd upgrade to the 7i rather than another v3-7. But this distributor sells boards clearly say they're not made or supported by you (so they're being honest about it).
Now... I also know you're up front about being GNU licensed ... so I'll ask, in a friendly way, if this is a friendly relationship, or a not-so-friendly one. I gather, if I purchased from them, I might still be interacting with the boards here from time-to-time.
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FYSETC has used patent filings on open source designs and trademark registrations on free/open printer projects in China to edge out other manufacturers of matching products without having had any role in the primary development of those things. For me, that's enough to maintain that I am not going to do business with them.
I can get anything FYSETC has on offer from other manufacturers (exception: The AIO II board which is getting exceedingly obsolete anyways), so it's not a big loss.
That said, I am trying to budget for the support of original designers/manufacturers even with open source designs. But that's up to everyone themselves.
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@oliof thank-you. I didn't know and do deplore the use of patents and trademarks against open source. I also like to support open source projects and creators in general, my only current problem being lack of stock in Canada ... as an erstwhile open source part can easily double in price if you're importing just one.
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Sure, I understand, and for proper open source designs buying off of other manufacturers is okay -- if they mark their products according to the license. I don't know if FYSETC does so with their boards (BTT did when I bought a clone board out of curiosity). Just be aware that in the case of Duet control boards, their design assumes high copper content on the PCB to act as passive heatsink. This may not be critical on PanelDue components, but it is one way non-primary manufacturers reduce production cost (and they rarely document how they cut corners).
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Why should we be polite when discussing them ? They are very "impolite" putting it mildly.
Their poor behavior as listed above and other nefarious B.S. merits them to earn the honors of the maker community banning and disparaging them - at least as much as the ABS Mafia in the voron community has ex-communicated Slice Engineering for enforcing their legitimately files patents.
FYSETC - low quality junk. Do not recommend.
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@sputnikoc3d said in Opinions on "FYSETC" ... politely, please.:
Why should we be polite when discussing them ?
The op is Canadian!
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@ibash Exactly, I was polite and I also said please. You can feel about FYSETC however you please, but please, please be polite when speaking to me. I promise to listen and consider your words in the manner that they are spoken.
Also know that I'm not looking to start a fire here. I honestly didn't know anything about them --- was even a bit miffed that I'm having trouble finding Duet3D product.
Also know that I don't yet have a horse in this race --- I have not bought anything yet (and it shows well on the community when you respond politely).
To answer an above question, I don't know what the unit comes with, but the pictures on the site include this picture of the back of the board (I only snipped part of it). I don't know if this is sufficient for the license.
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I find this interesting. What's the general opinions on the other Chinese manufactures making clones/alternatives? Makerbase, btt, mellow fly. I've never used a direct clone but have used a few mellow boards where I wanted to use stepsticks.
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@zbeeble Well at least they include the silk screen message and don't try to pass it off as an official board. Whether they use quality components and the same amount of copper, it's impossible for us to say. They may work fine. They may not.
It's worse when the cloners don't tell people up front that it's a clone and people have an expectation of support and warranty.
We do our best to provide support for RepRapFirmware to anyone that asks regardless of the board they are using. We do appreciate when people purchase the real deal though.
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@phaedrux I do appreciate your position. I won't be buying the electronics for the new printer for awhile yet. I'll keep looking. For all this, other than being "in stock" ... they're not all that much cheaper.
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@zbeeble I'd just wait for an OG Duet, just out of principle. The incredible effort here must be supported.
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@phaedrux said in Opinions on "FYSETC" ... politely, please.:
Well at least they include the silk screen message
Right, they even copied the "Esher3D" typo from the original
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@zbeeble If you want to email me (Filastruder), I can see what I can do to get you whatever you need at reasonable shipping. Anything to support Duet3D!
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@elmoret Are you a wholesaler in Canada? I tried looking to see if I could PM you, but you have DnD set. If you gimme your URL, I'll be happy to look there for my next purchase.
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@zbeeble In the US, Google Filastruder. Can’t turn on DMs everywhere, can’t track them all.
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@zbeeble both our Canadian Genuine resellers appear to have the PanelDue 7i in stock
https://duet3d.com/page/genuine-resellers -
@breed said in Opinions on "FYSETC" ... politely, please.:
I find this interesting. What's the general opinions on the other Chinese manufactures making clones/alternatives? Makerbase, btt, mellow fly. I've never used a direct clone but have used a few mellow boards where I wanted to use stepsticks.
I think clones and alternatives are very different things.
It's a personal ethics choice, but personally I don't buy clones (chinese or otherwise), but I don't see any problem with alternatives. I have a Mellow board running a sand table, but it's completely different to any Duet3D board, though it runs RRF and I've discussed it here.
I note that it is sometimes difficult to work out who 'started it' - I've seen people mounting a spirited attack on cheap 'ebay special' logic analysers claiming them to be clone / rip-off of saleae devices, but my undertsanding is that the cheapies and the (more basic) saleae devices are both copies of published specimen designs from the chip manufacturer. (I do use a cheapie logic analyser, I don't use saleae software with it.)
I don't think Duet3D claims exclusive ownership of RRF firmware, people other than Duet3D employees have contributed to RRF (I assume - I haven't checked the origin of every line of current code), and indeed there are forums here for RRF on other hardware.
See also https://forum.duet3d.com/topic/22800/what-s-the-stance-on-rrf-on-none-duet-boards
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In terms of RRF on other boards, @gloomyandy is the dev who has ported RRF to STM32F4 and STM32H7 boards and I support with documentation etc. The Duet3D team are very supporting of the work we have done and we regularly contribute by finding and fixing bugs and supporting users on this forum.
We also work with Mellow in the development of their boards to ensure they work well with RRF, for example they are the only boards that come with ESP32 wifi adapters on board and the only ones that support monitoring of the PSU voltage -
@jay_s_uk Ive had very good luck so far with the few mellow boards I have, with the exception of some issues connecting to USB here and there. I wish sometimes that duet made a board with stepsticks even if it had limited driver support, as I'd rather support duet than a Chinese company.
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